Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald
Trump's campaign, issued a statement Tuesday denying a new report
saying he met in secret with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in
March 2016.

"This story is totally false and deliberately libelous," he
said in a statement to INSIDER. "I have never met Julian Assange
or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone
connected to Wikileaks, either directly or indirectly."

The Guardian reported that Manafort met with Assange for
about 40 minutes in March 2016.

Four months later, WikiLeaks dumped the first batch of hacked
emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary
Clinton campaign.

Days later, on August 2, Manafort met with the Russian
military intelligence operative Konstantin Kilimnik and later
said they discussed the Trump campaign and the DNC hack.

The special counsel Robert Mueller has already been
probing what Manafort knows about the campaign's links to
WikiLeaks and will be keenly interested in the timing of his
reported meeting with Assange.

Paul Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's
campaign, forcefully denied a new Guardian report that said he
secretly met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shortly after
he joined the campaign.

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"This story is totally false and deliberately libelous," he said
in a statement to INSIDER. "I have never met Julian Assange or
anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone
connected to Wikileaks, either directly or indirectly. We
are considering all legal options against the Guardian who
proceeded with this story even after being notified by my
representatives that it was false."

Sources told The Guardian Manafort had previously interacted with
Assange in 2013 and 2015. His most recent visit reportedly came
in March 2016, right around when he was brought onto the campaign
to help shape delegate strategy going into the Republican
National Convention that summer. The meeting reportedly lasted
around 40 minutes and was not logged.

Assange is currently seeking asylum inside the Ecuadorian embassy
in London.

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In 2013, Manafort was reportedly listed in an internal document
by Ecuador's Senain intelligence agency as one of several
well-known guests who visited the embassy while Assange was
there. The document also mentions "Russians," The Guardian
reported.

When Manafort first visited Assange, he was working for the
former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who is known to be
a pro-Russian strongman and has been living under the Kremlin's
protection since he was ousted from the presidency in 2014.

Assange and WikiLeaks are at the center of the special counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the
2016 election. The DOJ has been investigating Assange since 2010
for his role in obtaining and disseminating sensitive information
pertaining to US national security interests. It recently
surfaced that the DOJ is preparing to indict Assange.

In a recently unsealed court filing in an
unrelated case, assistant US attorney Kellen S. Dwyer asked a
federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia to keep the
matter sealed.

Kellen wrote that "due to the sophistication of the defendant and
the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely
to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged,"
adding that the charges would "need to remain sealed until
Assange is arrested."

Dwyer was reportedly also working on the WikiLeaks case, and
people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that
what Dwyer had revealed in the filing was true but unintentional.

WikiLeaks published thousands of hacked emails from the
Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign at the
height of the 2016 election. The US intelligence community
believes the breaches and subsequent dissemination of emails were
carried out on the Kremlin's orders.

WikiLeaks dumped the first batch of hacked Democratic
emails on July 22, 2016. Days later, on August 2, Manafort met
with the Russian military intelligence operative Konstantin
Kilimnik and later said they discussed the Trump campaign and the
DNC hack.

Kilimnik said they did not discuss the campaign but talked
about "current events" and "unpaid bills," believed to be a
reference to Manafort's financial debt to the Russian-Ukrainian
oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Manafort was the chairman of the Trump campaign at the
time, and legal experts say Mueller will be keenly interested in
the timing of his meeting with Assange, which came just months
before WikiLeaks' first document dump. Indeed, Mueller has
already been probing what
Manafort knows about any links between the Trump campaign and
WikiLeaks.

He denies any involvement in the DNC hack.

Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction in
September and has been cooperating with Mueller since.

But things between the special counsel and Manafort have
reportedly been rocky for a while. Earlier this month, ABC News
reported that talks between the two sides had broken down.

Since pleading guilty, Manafort had met with prosecutors nearly a
dozen times, and though members of Mueller's team have been
asking him about a wide range of topics, they're "not getting
what they want," a source with knowledge of the discussions told
ABC News.